


To Everything a Season

by Little_Bean_Sprout



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Middle-Age Harry Potter, Mystery, Worldbuilding, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29545689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Bean_Sprout/pseuds/Little_Bean_Sprout
Summary: When he was a young boy (after he had escaped the cupboard, but before he had escaped his destiny), Harry Potter was told that he would be great — that he already was great. He came into the magical world, a beautiful realm wreath in mystery and wrath, surrounded by tales of his legendary defeat of a Dark Lord whose name none would still speak. He came into the magical world hopeful.It has been twenty years, to the day, since he walked into Diagon Alley.Legend never came for him, left him as abandoned as his dead parents.It has been twenty years, to the day, since he walked into Diagon Alley — and, with nowhere left to turn, he finds himself strung out in the Hog's Head complaining about things he really shouldn't be speaking of to a bartender who would never call him a friend, despite their friendship.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	To Everything a Season

The Hog's Head was a chaotic place at the best of times; strewn with sawdust and occupied by the least appetizing of people allowed allowed into Hogsmeade, it was a tattered place for tattered folk. Most days, the half-drunk scorned the unconscious bodies that lay their heads on the table got the best rest they could muster. Most days were not Sundays.

The bar, an old rickety thing that had been installed in the late fifties' and hadn't been given a wash since, smelt of mildew and of mold and of the blackened not-blood that coated the body of the vampire staked through it — an acrid and necrotic smell that clung to the air. On one side leaned Aberforth Dumbledore, a grumpy mess of frayed gray hair and static eyes behind dirty lens, holding a glass of who-knows-what in one hand and pouring another with the other. Across from him was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, an equally grumpy mess of unkempt black hair and unkempt manners that sometimes deigned to call itself a person. He stared listlessly at the vampire's body, a frown tugging down his eyes and his old scar with it. He didn't look up when the bartender passed him his drink, only put it to his lips and chugged it down.

The Hog's Head was usually a quiet place Sunday nights, though few suspected why. Harry Potter, ever one to pry, had never quite unraveled that peaceful mystery despite having reaped its rewards for the last decade.

'They're getting braver,' said the auror. 'Usually they wait until I'm gone.'

'Usually yee've left by three,' Aberforth tilted his own drink down, ignoring how some of it clung to the sawdust in his beard. Harry gave a surprised groan.

'Three already? I've gone and drunken away the day, then?'

'Aye,' the bartender grunted. 'Could'a been worse, 'least yee've still awake.'

Harry nodded, still staring at the cold body (though, he reminds himself, it had been freezing before they'd put a stake through it anyways). A moment later he shook his head and resumed his groan, taking his eyes off of it just long enough to put his head in his hands and push his empty mug towards Aberforth.

'More?'

'Please. I've got to head back to the office in... What time did you say it was?'

'Too early fer yee to drink, methinks.'

'Isn't your job to get me drunk?'

'Sunday's me day off.'

'It isn't Sunday anymore.'

'Touché!' Aberforth guffawed and poured him another mug-full. Harry raised his head to stare at him.

'Got something on me face, boy?'

'You're in a good mood, is all.'

'Work keeps me happy,' the bartender nodded towards the mug. 'Now drink yee fill and begone, yee're not the only one needing rest.'

Harry nodded and took another sip, but in the back of him noted that despite his own exhaustion and the brew being thrown at him, he still didn't feel the curbing comfort of drunkenness spill over to him. He frowned over the top of the mug, a glint in his green eyes, and slowly set it down while starring at the bartender.

'... No, really, what've I got on me face?'

'You're spiking my drinks!' the auror accused. 'Err, un-spiking. Reverse spiking? Undrunkenning.'

Aberforth stared at him for a second, a frown aging his face and tugging his massive clumps of beard down. 'A hefty slander that is, Mr. Potter. A hefty slander indeed.'

Harry narrowed his eyes at the man, trying to read his face through the veil of sleeplessness.

'Not slander if it's true,' he shook his head. 'If it ain't slander, then it's just the truth. If it's true, anyways.'

'If'n it be truth,' the bartender nodded in agreement.

They stared at each other from across the bar, quiet thick enough to cut hanging between them. Harry's eye twitched first.

They both burst into laughter at the same time, Harry's loud and full of distraction and Aberforth's quiet and easing. The auror leaned his head against the dirty bar, feeling the sticky ichor from the slain beast nearby against his forehead, while the bartender leaned back in his seat and tried to balance his mug while his shoulders shook. They made quite the image, there, brother-of-the-Great-Albus and failure-of-a-Boy-Who-Lived leaning over and away from a dead undead in an empty inn at ungodly hours.

The door burst open, the sound of three squabbling would-be-clients half-drunk and leaning against each other while talking loudly. Their laughter cut out immediately, replaced with surprise.

'... and then, ya see, I's tooks him by the neck an' saids—'

They never quite knew what the drunken blonde said, though, because before they could finish his voice was cut off by his left-leaning friend's panic.

'Shite! Body! Corbe, there's a—'

Twin jets of pale red shot out towards the man, each hitting within a hair's breadth from the other. The man went tumbling to the ground, his eyes glazed and rolling into the back of his head. As he hit with a heavy thud, he dragged his slurring story-telling fellow down cursing with him. The third unhooked his arm just in time, but just as he turned to look at the doorway in fear, he too went tumbling to the ground from an unseen spell.

The conscious man had a second to look up, wide eyes confused, and begged 'what? what's going—' before he too joined his friends.

Harry Potter was already standing and stepping towards the three as Aberforth tucked his wand (a thick mahogany thing with a core he refused to speak of but that Harry strongly suspected to be goat-string) back into his pocket. A frown marred his face, hiding the lines of joy from just a short second before.

'Yee're losing yee've touch, Mr. Potter,' he grunted, pouring himself another drink after he had sent his first one flying all over the floor a moment before.

'Only because you've gone and gotten me drunk on my birthday,' the auror stepped towards the bodies, waving his wand in silent incantation over them.

'Thought I made yee drinks... what'd yee call it? unspiked?'

'Oh, do shut up,' Harry finished his orchestral movements and, with a flash of silver'd light towards the three bodies, ensured none would remember anymore more than stumbling drunk into the Hog's Head and falling into a stupor when they finally sat down on the nearest floor. With a sigh, he gazed longingly towards both the dead vampire and his half-drunken drink.

Aberforth grunted and, with a flick of his half-holstered wand, send the drink flying unkindly wards the man. As Harry grabbed it before it rocketed over his shoulder and into the warm town beyond, he grinned in thanks.

'I'd best be going,' he gulped down the ale — cider? he honestly had no idea — and set it down on the nearby table. 'You got the —'

'Aye, I've been dealing with bloodtakers since a'fore yee were born, lad.'

Harry smirked and, with one last wave over his shoulder, stepped out into Hogsmeade.

Thus began the first Monday of Harry Potter's thirty-first year.


End file.
